Losing Everything
by swizzle-twizzle
Summary: You never know what it's like to lose everything until you do. Datherine; based off of CPCoulter's story: Dalton.


**Disclaimer: I own neither Glee, nor Dalton by CPCoulter.**

* * *

It was a Saturday afternoon when David got the call. It was Katherine's mother, as it usually was, asking him to please come to the hospital quickly. It was the slight hitch in the woman's voice, the slight edge that gave it away. David drove well above the speed limit, worry stabbing his heart. He turned the radio on but was unaware of the music playing. All he could hear was the steady beating of his heart and Katherine's voice.

_"David," Katherine whined, standing on her tip-toes and reaching for the paper he held well above her head. "Give it back!"_

_"No, no! I want to read it!" He laughed. "I bet it's a love poem! An ode to the wonderful David!"_

_Katherine stopped reaching for the paper rather abruptly, and her face fell very serious. It was so sudden that David had thought he had hurt her, or that she was very upset. The smile on her face had faded, and her cheeks were still pink from laughing. "Actually, it is. Now, will you please give it back?" She said calmly, her hand held out to take the paper._

_"Katherine!" David groaned, running to catch up with the girl. "Katherine, please, calm down!"_

_"Calm down?" She mimicked, turning around on her heel quickly. "You're asking _me_ to calm down?"_

_"Yes! I think you're being outrageous!"_

_"Oh, so you're calling me outrageous now, are you?" She asked, her hands on her hips. _

_David's eyebrows shot up towards his hairline. "Katherine, I have no idea what's gotten into you!"_

_"Well, it might have something to do with that floozy drooling over you!" She shrieked with her voice high and shrill._

_David was slightly derailed. "'Floozy'?" He asked, the corner of his lip twitching upward for only a moment. However, it didn't go unnoticed by Katherine._

_"This is not funny!" She stomped angrily, taking several large steps and closing the distance between them. "You're insufferable, I hope you know that! Thinking that you can just have any girl you please-"_

_"When in the world did I ever give off that impression?" David yelled incredulously, his face giving way to the complete confusion he felt._

_"When have you _not?_" She hissed. "You didn't exactly give her any reason to think you were uninterested!"_

_"I can assure you that I am completely and utterly uninterested in any sort of floozy," David said, his calm demeanor put on once more._

_His calmness seemed to deter Katherine from her anger. "Well… Well that's… Very good then!" She cried, turning on her heel once more and stomping away, leaving David to smile in spite of himself._

_"You're a bit of a sap, I hope you know." Katherine giggled as she took in their surroundings. Between the paper lanterns David had lovingly hung, the fireflies hovering in the air around them, and the guitar David was clutching nervously, it looked like something entirely out of an eighties movie rather than real life._

_"I was kind of hoping to be_ your_ sap," he admitted, blushing all the same. When she only blinked in response, he continued to speak. "I just… I've had this song on repeat on my iPod for the past six weeks, and I learned all the chords to it and learned how to play them on the guitar-I don't normally play the guitar, so it was a bit of a learning experience… But it was the perfect song to ask you out with, so I planned on asking you to come out here and to woo you with a candlelit dinner and then whip out the guitar, and it was all going to be stunning, and you would have been completely charmed by my suave manners, but then Wes burnt the dinner, and the tablecloth set on fire from the candles, and I broke one of the guitar strings, so the whole plan was ruined and I'm kind of hoping that you just stop me now so I don't keep blabbering on and ruining this whole thing again."_

_Katherine was silent, much to David's horror. He shook his head, realizing that he was going to get rejected and laughed at, and she would hate him forever, and Wes would think he was stupid for even-_

_"You're amazing," Katherine said, her voice breathy and her eyes bright. "I don't care about the dinner, or the tablecloth-Well, no, I'm slightly curious as to how the tablecloth set on fire, but… I don't care if it's what you imagined, because it's perfect, because it's you, and I can't…" She laughed in spite of the situation and managed to relieve some of the tension. "You're incredible. Yes. Yes, a thousand, million times, yes. You can be my sap, and I would totally love to go out with you some time."_

_She yanked on it gently, but not with nearly enough strength to remove it. The action caught David's attention, and he looked at the blue plastic hospital bracelet with confusion._

_"Why are you still wearing that?" He asked with such gentleness that made Katherine unable to meet his eyes, as if she was caught doing something she shouldn't have been. Noticing her reluctance, he took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles gently._

_"I know I shouldn't be, but…" She bit her lip as she tried to find the correct words. "It's like… a reminder. It reminds me that I'm not better yet, that I still have a long way to go until I've fully recovered. And it's just… It's been with me for so long, it's just…" She looked at David, her smile soft and her eyes laced with the weariness she felt. "It reminds me of how precious life can be." Silence fell after her words, managing to create something akin to tension in the room._

_"I love you," David blurted suddenly, as if he had never said it before. "I know I've said it before, it's just… I never want you to forget it. Ever. I just… I start to wonder if I could possibly love you any more than I already do, and then you just _smile_, or say 'hello,' and I know that I can." His words picked up in speed and feeling as he went until he came to a halt and took a breath. "I just… I love you. A lot."_

_And as Katherine beamed at him, David once more felt incredibly blessed to have her in his life. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. She leaned into him and he tugged gently at her bracelet._

_"You know," he whispered into her ear softly, his breath tickling her neck. "When you're all better-" Not an if, Katherine mentally noted, but a when. "-I want to be there when you cut this off."_

_They both knew the deeper meaning to the words, but neither vocalized them. Some things were better left unsaid._

When David ran into Katherine's hospital room, the sound of her laugh was running through his mind as he sank to the floor of the room. It was empty, with all of her personal touches she had added to the room gone and the bed made as though she hadn't been spending every moment laying in it.

"She left you a letter," Katherine's mom said softly. David whipped around to meet her tear-streaked face. "She wrote it ages ago and kept editing it. She wanted to give it to you when she…" The woman cleared her throat and held out an envelope to him. He took it wordlessly and made no effort to wipe his eyes. "Thank you. You were… You were her everything, you know. I think… I think you were the reason she held on so long."

When David finally answered, he did so softly. "She was my everything, too."

* * *

Wes opened his front door at two o' clock in the morning with the full intention of murdering whoever stood beyond it. It was only when he saw David standing in the rain with a forlorn expression on his face that his feelings were wiped away, and he grabbed his best friend into a hug.

Sometimes, they didn't need to use words.

They sat on Wes' couch for two hours in total silence, with David staring at a crinkled paper in his tight grip and Wes staring at David's expression. He wondered, for the first time, what it felt like to lose everything.

"I haven't cried." He confessed quietly, finally. "I know… I know it's normal, and that I should, and that I… I need to, but I… I can't believe it happened." Wes didn't speak, and David finally erupted. "I mean, I have all the evidence. I mean, she's not here anymore, and the doctors were all apologizing, and I have-I have a pamphlet, did you know they made those, I have a pamphlet, and it tells you how to deal with grief, but they don't… They talk about how rotten you feel, and they talk about how talking to a therapist and time will heal you, but they don't… They don't talk about what you're supposed to do if you're heart has been ripped out. They don't know what you're supposed to do when absolutely everything has just been taken from you. They don't… They didn't know Katherine, and they have no idea of what I'm going through right now, so they can't expect… They can't just give me a ruddy pamphlet and expect me to be okay!" The tears that had been collecting at the corners of his eyes finally began to overflow, and rolled down his face quickly. "She would hate that I'm… That I'm so upset right now, but she… She got to leave, and I have to stay here without her. She… She lost her life, but I lost my _everything._"

Wes grabbed him, his grip tight and his pull perhaps a bit too violent, and pulled his friend into his chest. David sobbed, large heavy sobs that seemed to have built up over the entire course of knowing Katherine, and Wes was left to rub his back and feel useless and empty. He wondered, for a moment, where a pamphlet for him was, because he really, really needed it.

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A/N: So, there we go! I'm so sorry for the horrible butchering of both Glee/CPCoulter's wonderful characters, not to mention the horrible use of the English language. Can I blame it on being extremely tired rather than on lack of writing ability?

...Didn't think so. Anyways, leave a review, regardless of your opinion on it! Thank you so much for reading!


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